Usted es misionero, verdad??

December 23, 2013

Hello everyone!!

Ah man, the mission is literally the best. I am absolutely loving every single day of it. Things are going really great here in Morelia :) We still don´t have water but yesterday I told our landlord that we are going to move if he doesn´t get us water today, so hopefully we get water.. if not, I´m not exactly sure if we are aloud to move. But it sure got him moving, he came to our house this morning to talk things over and promised that he would send a plummer our way. We have lots of hope!! Since we can´t use the bathroom in our house, the plants out back get plenty of watering. And two times this week while we were out in the street I had to take off running for the closest bushes. Nobody in Morelia is going to have to water their plants if we don´t get water back soon!!

We are way stoked for our investigators right now!! Pedro gave up smoking and drinking and will be baptized this Saturday. Ramon decided to leave his girlfriend and is still planning on being baptized the following Saturday to start the new year off right :) We are so happy for Pedro and Ramon. They have truly become converted. Ramon told us that everyone keeps asking him what happened to him because he looks so much happier. He tells people it´s because he got a haircut! hahaha. Pedro is still planning and wearing a tunic for his baptism. we will see what happens this week haha.

We were in a store today checking out watches and we were chatting with the guy and he asked me "Usted es misionero, verdad?" or "you´re a missionary right?" and I was like yeah we are missionaries from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, have you talked to missionaries like us before or something? He said "no, I knew becuase I could hear your american accent". I said ahh the name tag and white shirt wasn´t what gave it away?? We both had a good laugh. Hopefully by the end of my mission my accent won´t be what gives it away that I am a missionary.
Feliz Navidad to everyone :) may you remember the the most important gift that we have received, the life of our Savior, Jesus Christ.

Love,

Elder Del Toro

 Our gifts wrapped up and ready to be gifted at the gift exchange... Out of 50 elders who were there from our two zones I received Elder Bowen's gift!!! I was so pumped! It is a rice heat pad :)

 The district, with two elders missing

Feliz Navidad de los DelZalez :)

December 16, 2013

Hello family and friends :)

Oh man, Mexico is so great!! I think I am starting to get some serious mexican pride. I am loving the culture and the people more and more each week.

So we are at day 19 without water or something like that. We had water last saturday and sunday but other than that we have been enduring our trials :) This week we got to do a lot of service! We painted a gate for an hermana in our ward and friday we swept our street for almost a whole block. We have every friday now to do community service for two hours. And it´s the only time that we can contact people in the street so I really like that part about it too :) People were way confused of why we were sweeping their part of the side walk and asking them if we could sweep their entrance. We got to know some of our neighbors a lot better. Service just opens peoples hearts! This week we were at the bishops house teaching his him and his wife and we started to hear screaming. It was his daughter locked in the bathroom haha. The lock was jammed from the inside and the outside and poor Caren was stuck in there. After about 10 minutes elder G and I were able to bust the lock with two screw drivers. Our bishop was just about to have me kick the door in hahaha. Caren thinks we are the best now, and wants to be a missionary some day.  We made gifts today for a gift exchange that we are going to have this week as a mission. I made a pretty good looking pillow case :) It is blue with white starts and moons and on the side it says "Did you pray?" in spanish :) Our relief society president helped us with our projects. She said that she might be able to help me make some shorts with the left over material next p-day :)

This week we had such an awesome lesson with Ramon. He has a girl friend that he stays with sometimes so he knew he wasn´t ready to be baptized but we talked about the law of chastity and how he needs to either marry the girl or start living the law of chastity and he said he was going to figure everything out. He said the closing prayer and after he finished, he stood up and said that he would be the first baptism in our church in 2014!! Elder G and I almost cried. haha we were so emotional. we have been teaching Ramon for so long! like 3 months Elder G got here. Ramon is such a good guy, he has attended church 9 times already and has an awesome testimony. That day when he accepted to be baptized was one of the happiest days of my life. Ramon has been one of my favorite investigators and we had gotten really close with him. I wrote in my journal that night, "my joy is full". I have never in my life felt so much joy. I absolutely love serving the Lord as a missionary :)

Hope all is well with everyone :)

Love,
Elder Del Toro

Querido Juan

December 9, 2013

Hello family and friends!

Elder Gonzalez and I had another good week in Mexico. A lot of really good things happened this week! We got our water back yesterday!! And we now have a brand new boiler! But even better, we received a bunch of references this week and Pedro and Ramon are just about ready for baptism. They are both clearning up a couple things but they have been progressing so much and they both said they want to be baptized pronto. They funniest thing is that Pedro wants to be baptized in a white tunic, like the greek gods wore. hahaha he has some crazy ideas but we will try to make every accomodation we can to help him feel comfortable. My poor companion received the "Querido Juan" (Dear John), or in other words his little lady called it off. He has handled it like a man, but we are still going to burn the tie that she gave him. I think that will make us both feel better :)
This week I was also asked to give a talk in sacrament meeting. We called our Bishop saturday night to see if he needed anything and he told me that I would speak in church. I was asked to talk about Activation in the Work of Salvation. I read the first line of the Hymn "The Spirit of God"... Like a fire is burning apears the Holy Spirit of our Grand Creator (rough translation). I related this to my days in Tacoma steel.  I worked with a torch cutting scrap for the whole summer and learned quite a bit about steel. I spoke about how are a lot like steel haha. Steel has to be heated to about 2000 degrees celcius before it can begin to melt, this is done with the flame. When it reaches that temperature it turns bright red and at this point you pull the trigger for the oxygen. It is much different than air because air only has about 97% oxygen and the rest is other gases. When you spray the pure oxygen on the melting steel, the steel basically starts to burn itself because the oxygen is feeding it the fuel that it need to continue to burn. The steel keeps melting as you spray the oxygen where you want to cut, you don´t need to keep burning each spot on the steel. Oh man the congregation looked so confused after I got done telling them that. Members of the church are like the spot in the steel that we begin to heat up. The flame is what we need to build our testimony, reading the scriputres, praying every day, attending church, etc. And when the steel begins to melt in that one spot, or when that one person has built up their testimony of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, you spray the oxygen, or you share your pure testimony, you give the other people what they need to feel the spirit and begin to burn in their hearts of our Savior. The thing is that if you spray pure oxygen on steel, it doesn´t do anything, and if you heat up every part of steel along where you want to cut it just doesn´t work, but when you have heated up one spot and then begin spraying the oxygen, it is all just so beautiful :) It is the same with us, we have to have our own testimony before we can help out those who are around us, and when we have that testimony we share it with others to help them grow in the gospel. Activation :) By the end, I think the majority of the people got it haha. You might wonder how but maybe it was just a "you had to be there to get it" kind of a thing.
I love this whole mission thing :) I know that I am a son of God and that He loves me. I know that I am sharing the Gospel with other children of God to bring them eternal happiness.
Thank you all for the support you give me.

Love,

Elder Del Toro

 Mexico has their OJ Simpson too

 I got my shoes shined :)

Basically Thanksgiving

December 2, 2013

Hello everyone :)
I hope everyone had a wonderful thanksgiving!! To be completely honest, I forgot it was thanksgiving until 9:00 at night when our american zone leader called to wish a happy thanksgiving. How ungrateful am I?!?!?! It was just another day in Mexico and I forgot all about it. I didn´t realize it but my thanksgiving feast was pozole and tacos de chicharron. my pozole had chicken which is basically turkey and chicharro is fried pig skin which is basically like a spiraled ham. happy thanksgiving from mexico :)  This week has surely been an interesting one. I received karma for not being thankful on thanksgiving, our water shut off on friday. So it´s been a little tough. We realized that we didn´t receive the bill in the mail so we went and paid it at the water place on saturday. And then I guess we just thought everything would be fine. But we returned home and nothing changed. So if you think it´s hard to talk to a real person on the phone in the US, you better think again. It is impossible here. We went in today to ask what´s up and they said they would try to send someone to check it out tomorrow. In the meantime, we stink. Haha just kidding we walk to the other elders´ house in the morning to shower. But it´s real tough not having water in the house.
This week our ward had a sweet activity. Everyone invited their friends to a tour in the church. It was very well organized, there were four different stops where they went and listened to different topics of our church. There were snacks, beverages, and quite a few people who came. We also had an awesome lesson this week. We have been teaching this lady named Lucia and we went to teach her and she was like look guys, your really sweet and all but I don´t want to waste your time because I know that I´m not going to join your church. We told her that we aren´t just there to make her get baptized. Our purpose is to help others come unto Christ. And we talked about how before we started teaching she didn´t know how to pray, she didn´t know that she lived with our Heavenly Father before this life, and she wasn´t studying the scriptures. Right now she is studying the bible, praying every day, and knows where she came from, what she is doing here, and that one day she can return to live with our Heavenly Father. We had an awesome lesson after our little chat about the sacrifice that our Savior made for us. It was a very spiritual lesson, and Lucia was very touched by the spirit. At the end she was crying at said that she would like us to keep teaching her. I believe her 100% when she says she knows she won´t change religions, she has what we call a "corazón muy duro". But that´s not what is important. She is growing closer to her Saviour each time. I told her that we aren´t there to change her religion but we are there to change her life. And that is exactly what this message does :)

Love you all!

Elder Del Toro

 "sopa feliz"

 We went to the zoo this today! they let you get really close to the animals here! ;)

One of Pedro´s puppies

Say it how it is Brotha Cruz

November 25, 2013

This week was so awesome!! For sure one of my favorite weeks :)

Cosme got baptized!! We are so excited for him. His family was able to to come from out of town too so that was sweet to see him with his mom and sisters. The water was cold and I had to dunk him twice but all went well :) He was confirmed yesterday and received the priesthood and yesterday in the church Elder Gonzalez and I noticed how different Cosme looked! His countenance is just diferent and we told him and he said that he feels better than he has ever felt in his life. Cosme is the man.
This week we had some really funny experiences. We were eating the other day with a family and the Hermana was telling me how well my spanish has gotten. I was so excited, but like 5 minutes later she asked me a question "so are you elders still showering with cold water" and I was like, well Hermana, we still dont have a boiler but we bought gas and we heat up water on the stove and use that. She looked at me super confused so I kept explaining that I pour the hot water on myself with a big cup and I was acting it out and then everyone just started laughing. I have no idea how I understood her question how I did because she really asked me if I had ever been in their dining room to eat.. Ah man. spanish level back down to zero. I still question how in the world I interpreted her question like that. She said oh elder del toro don´t worry you can share your problems with us anytime. haha. how embarassing now the whole ward is going to know how I bath myself.
We got to do some sweet service this week! we were the moving crew for an Hermano in our ward. He called us up and said he need to move a couple things from his old house so we were happy to help. Holy smokes there were more than a couple things. He had a huge gas tank, a bed, a table, and some other stuff. And the best part is that he didn´t have a truck. We carried all his stuff like a mile across town by foot. haha. I got volunteered to carry the gas tank. I was sweating like a pig when we arrived but we got it done.
The last funny thing that happened was by our good friend Martin Cruz. He was asked to say the opening prayer in sacrament meeting and was super nervous because he just became active again and was asking me what he should say. I just said to pray for the things that came to his mind. He got up there and did just that. The funniest thing is that he said "please bless the people who haven´t woken up yet because they are lazy, that they can come to church today". And would you believe it, our investigator Pedro showed up about a half hour later. The power of prayer... Thank you Martin Cruz.
Elder Gonzalez and I are doing awesome. We will miss thanksgiving this year but that´s alright because Elder G doesn´t know what it is and I always had to diet for wrestling during the hollidays anyways. I am so greatful for the time I have to be serving the Lord.

Love you all,

Elder Del Toro

Mexican Chinese Food

November 18, 2013

Hello everybody :)

This week was another good one here in Morelia. There were some really awesome things that happened. First of all, the whole Montes family attended church this week! we were super excited for that, and especially because Pedro helped us with a role play in sunday school because we taught it this week. He basically feels like a missionary. He has come with us a couple times for lessons with really old sisters in the ward and for the role play he gave to ward lots of insight on how they should go about finding people. What a great guy. He needs to attend church a few more times to be baptized but he is definately making progress :)
Our investigator Ramon is way ready for baptism but he still feels unprepared. Honestly, I have never seen someone so prepared. We fasted this weekend and the poor guy looked like he was going to pass out. He fasted for like 35 hours!! His baptism date was for this upcoming saturday but he wants more time to prepare so we just keep supporting him and helping him prepare for his baptism.
Cosme´s baptism is this upcoming saturday. His family is going to come in from out of town to be apart of it. He is very excited and very prepared :)
We are very excited because we have a lot of less active members of the ward coming again and making lots of progress. The best thing is when we lose a less active because that means they have received a calling in the ward and are back to being actives. That is our goal with all the less actives that we teach.
We had divisions for a day with the other Elders and Elder Gonzalez forgot is flip flops at their house. Poor guy had to wear grocery bags on his feet for his shower.
We also found out this week that there is only one thing worse than bad american chinese food... bad mexican chinese food. We had some real bad chinese food this week that tore us up. In one of our appointments the bathroom was right next to the living room and Elder G had to go.There were some terrible sounds. Those darn barking spiders.. We made a promise that the next time something like that happens the other companion will ask the family to sing a hymn with 4 verses to help our companion out.
Everything is going great with Elder Gonzalez and I. We have got to be the happiest pair of missionaries in Mexico.

Love,
Elder Del Toro

Smile :) Families are Forever

November 12, 2013

Hello fam and friends :)

First of all, thanks for all the birthday wishes. The birthday was different but I think I like birthdays on the mission more than at home. I think it was the first time I have ever really been grateful for a birthday. It wasn´t about presents or singing or anything like that, I really realized how blessed I am to be born into such a great family, to have the Gospel in my life, and to have 20 awesome years!  It was a kind of a long day because we had to travel to Guadalajara for a meeting. It was 4 hours there, a two hour meeting, and 4 hours back. It was a really long day, but it was cool to hear from the President and to talk to Elder Gonzalez for 8 hours about life as we know it for haha. And yes, he did sing to me (in espanglish) and bought me an ice cream when we got back last night.

Elder Gonzalez and I had another awesome week here in Morelia :)
He keeps telling me that I am becoming more mexican each week. We had lunch with a family this week that had some chiles that they said were the hottest. So like most missionaries would do, we took them to the test. It was us two and the other two missionaries in our ward. We each took our turn with the smallest and most red that we could find. Those are the ones that kick the most. The chile drew tears from Elder Harris and Gonzalez. Elder Medrano was sweating so much he had to walk outside for a little. But my chile didn´t really kick that much so they picked another one for me and the same, it didn´t kick much. I have been noticing that I can handle some serious spicy food lately! My tongue is definately mexican I guess. Elder G told me that I am the man and that now he knows why I have so much hair on my chest. haha.

We had some really awesome lessons this week. My favorite was with the Careño family. Hermano Careño was baptized a year ago and his wife 9 months ago. We had them planned for the last lesson of the day on Sunday and holy smokes it was the only lesson sunday. All of our appointments fell threw and we were walking around all day just to find people not home. It was way rough and we were way tired and discouraged so when the Careños were home we were so excited. Our lesson was on temples and we talked about how they can be sealed as a family with their two kids here in the near future. They have plans to travel to the Salt Lake City Temple to be sealed there but are having problems getting their visas and they are sacrificing a lot to have the money to make the trip. It was such an awesome lesson, we talked about how great a blessing it is to be able to be with your family for time here on earth, but for time and all eternity. We told them how happy our Savior must be that they are making that decision. Hermano Careño got super emotional and started crying and then I lost it when I started talking about how grateful I am that my parents made the decision to be sealed in the temple and then Elder G was tearing up sharing his testimony about the temple and Hermana Careño was crying because everyone else was way emotional. But it was such a powerful lesson. The spirit was so strong and I think all of our testimonies were strengthened about families and the temple. How great a blessing it is to have this Gospel in my life. It is lessons like those that make the mission all worth it.
We are very excited for our investigators Cosme and Ramon. They are planning on being baptized the 23 of November.

I am one happy missionary :)

Thanks for all the love and support

Elder Del Toro